Emotions, Value, and Agency

Christine Tappolet

Offers a clear and detailed defence of the Perceptual Theory of emotions, according to which emotions are perceptual experiences of values.

Clarifies the relationship between emotions, on the one hand, and motivation and values, on the other.

Proposes a new understanding of how emotions are tied to moral responsibility.

Argues that emotions play a crucial role in our grasp of practical reasons, and more generally in human agency.

Emotions, Value, and Agency

Christine Tappolet

Description

The emotions we experience are crucial to who we are, to what we think, and to what we do. But what are emotions, exactly, and how do they relate to agency? The aim of this book is to spell out an account of emotions, which is grounded on analogies between emotions and sensory experiences, and to explore the implications of this account for our understanding of human agency. The central claim is that emotions consist in perceptual experiences of values, such as the fearsome, the disgusting or the admirable. A virtue of this account is that it affords a better grasp of a variety of interconnected phenomena, such as motivation, values, responsibility and reason-responsiveness. In the process of exploring the implications of the Perceptual Theory of emotions, several claims are proposed. First, emotions normally involve desires that set goals, but they can be contemplative in that they can occur without any motivation. Second, evaluative judgements can be understood in terms of appropriate emotions in so far as appropriateness is taken to consist in correct representation. Third, by contrast with what Strawsonian theories hold, the concept of moral responsibility is not response-dependent, but the relationship between emotions and moral responsibility is mediated by values. Finally, in so far as emotions are perceptions of values, they can be considered to be perceptions of practical reasons, so that on certain conditions, acting on the basis of one's emotions can consist in responding to one's reasons.

Emotions, Value, and Agency

Christine Tappolet

Table of Contents

1. Emotion and Perception2. Emotion and Motivation3. Emotion and Values4. Emotion and Responsibility5. Emotion and Agency

Emotions, Value, and Agency

Christine Tappolet

Author Information

Christine Tappolet, Universite de Montreal

Christine Tappolet is Full Professor at the Departement de philosophie at the Universite de Montreal. Her research interests lie mainly in ethics, moral psychology, and emotion theory. She has edited a number of volumes, including, with Sarah Stroud, Weakness of Will and Practical Rationality (Oxford, 2003), and is the author of a number of articles and chapters on themes such as values, normativity, weakness of will, procrastination, autonomy and emotions, as well as of two books, Emotions et valeurs (2000, Presses Universitaires de France), and with Ruwen Ogien, Les concepts de l'ethique. Faut-il etre consequentialiste? (Hermann, 2008).

Emotions, Value, and Agency

Christine Tappolet

Reviews and Awards

"Tappolet's book is to be recommended, first of all, for the way in which it shows how her theory of emotion interlocks with plausible theories of value and agency, and how these interlocking theories mutually support each other. The project is ambitious, as it requires a grasp of the difficulties in different and vast fields of inquiry, but the book lives up to its ambition: it is rich, accessibly written, well-structured, and extremely well-informed. It is focused, in the sense that in many cases it provides just the right amount of information about the theories discussed...I recommend this book to anyone interested in emotions, motivation, values, moral responsibility, and agency. Tappolet has illuminating things to say about all of these matters and, in particular, about the ways in which they interconnect. Her ambitious project has succeeded." -- Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews